Pacific Opera Victoria Presents Barbara Hannigan & Bertrand Chamayou

by | Nov 29, 2024 | Events, Faculty, Graduate, News, Orion Series in Fine Arts, School of Music, Undergraduate

Do not miss this one-night-only event! 7:30pm December 02 at McPherson Playhouse. An evening of music with renown artists soprano Barbara Hannigan & pianist Bertrand Chamayou, with special guest appearances by Terrence Tam (Principal Violin of Victoria Symphony) and Benjamin Butterfield (Head of Voice, UVic School of Music). The duo will present a concert at the McPherson Playhouse featuring Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel, Scriabin’s Poème-nocturne and Vers la flamme, and John Zorn’s Jumalattaret. Barbara and Bertrand’s visit is made possible in part with support from Pacific Opera Victoria.

 

With a musical programme featuring Messiaen’s Chants de Terre et de Ciel, Scriabin’s Poème-nocturne and Vers la flamme, and John Zorn’s Jumalattaret, be ready to be whisked away on a fascinating and eclectic journey through diverse musical landscapes.

Messiaen’s mystical and nature-inspired compositions – rich with complex rhythms, vibrant colors, and mystical themes – create an ethereal and contemplative atmosphere. Scriabin’s metaphysical and harmonically adventurous works is dreamy and dramatic, brimming with sensuous textures, innovative harmonies, and a sense of transcendence. Zorn’s modern and genre-defying piece is a masterwork in the advent-guarde. It boldly presents a complex tapestry of sound that explores the boundaries of traditional and contemporary music.

Barbara Hannigan

Barbara Hannigan, an unparalleled artist, embodies music with remarkable dramatic sensibility. Collaborating with luminaries like John Zorn, Simon Rattle, and Sasha Waltz, she’s at the forefront of musical creation. Her commitment to contemporary music is evident in premiering over 90 new works and collaborations with composers like Boulez and Ligeti. Recently, she debuted Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, blending singing and conducting with live video. Her conducting debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and ongoing collaborations with esteemed orchestras mark her as a leading figure in the music world. Her recordings, including the Grammy-winning Crazy Girl Crazy, showcase her exceptional talent. Barbara’s dedication to mentoring young artists led to initiatives like Equilibrium Young Artists and Momentum. Recognized with prestigious awards like the Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year, Barbara Hannigan continues to inspire and innovate in the world of music from her home in Finistère, France.

Bertrand Chamayou

Bertrand Chamayou stands as one of today’s most brilliant pianists, acclaimed for his virtuosic and deeply imaginative performances. Renowned for interpreting French music, he’s explored major works by Ravel, Liszt, and Messiaen. Chamayou’s collaborations with contemporary composers demonstrate his passion for innovation. Performing worldwide at esteemed venues and festivals, he’s graced stages with renowned orchestras and conductors. This season, he’s featured in an ‘Artist Portrait’ series with the London Symphony Orchestra and anticipates the release of his forthcoming album, “Satie-Cage.” His acclaimed recordings, including Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus, have garnered numerous awards and accolades, showcasing his mastery. Chamayou’s artistic endeavors extend beyond performance, as he co-directs the Festival Ravel, a prominent celebration of Maurice Ravel’s legacy. With a multi-award-winning discography and an unparalleled dedication to musical innovation, Bertrand Chamayou continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

Jeannette Armstrong and Lina de Guevara awarded Honorary Doctorates

by | Nov 10, 2024 | Alumni, Award, indigenous, News, Theatre, Writing

The Faculty of Fine Arts is thrilled to announce that Jeannette Armstrong will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) and Lina de Guevara will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA) at the Fall 2024 Fine Arts convocation ceremony.

You can watch as part of the UVic convocation livestream starting at 10am Tuesday, Nov 12 (Armstrong) and 2:30pm Wednesday, Nov 13 (de Guevara). 

Armstrong

About Jeanette Armstrong 

Jeannette Armstrong is an associate professor in Indigenous Studies and the coordinator of Interior Salishan Studies Centre at UBC Okanagan. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Born on the Penticton Indian Reserve in the Okanagan, Armstrong is a multi-faceted writer, visual artist, researcher, educator, leader and activist.

She received a Diploma in Fine Arts from Okanagan College, then earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria in 1978. In 2009, she received her doctorate in Indigenous Environmental Ethics from the University of Greifswald in Germany.

Armstrong is one of the founders of the En’owkin Centre (originally named the Okanagan Indian Curriculum Project) to provide students with strong cultural and academic foundations for success. The Centre includes Theytus Publications, the first Indigenous-owned publishing house in Canada.

The En’owkin International School of Writing, founded by Armstrong in a partnership with UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts, has served Indigenous artists and writers for over 40 years. Armstrong was a co-founder of En’owkin’s Certificate in Aboriginal Language Revitalization which operates in partnership with UVic’s Department of Linguistics serving Indigenous communities throughout Canada.

As an influential advocate for Indigenous peoples’ rights, Armstrong has been a force of change and widescale community impact through her artistic, research and educational vision.

de Guevara

About Lina de Guevara 

Lina de Guevara’s career as a director, writer, actor, and teacher has left an indelible impact on Canada’s theatre community. As the founder and former artistic director of Puente Theatre, she dedicated 25 years to sharing the stories of immigrant and refugee communities.

Having fled a military coup in her native country of Chile before settling in Victoria in 1976, de Guevara drew upon her own lived experiences to produce dozens of critically acclaimed plays and collaborations that have toured nationally and internationally.

Visionary productions such as I Wasn’t Born Here, Crossing Borders and Familya shed light on issues such as discrimination, social justice, and employment barriers. By exploring these themes, de Guevara’s work has both entertained and educated audiences for decades.

Trained at the Instituto del Teatro (University of Chile), she has used her skills to teach, mentor, and create space for emerging Indigenous artists and artists of colour across Vancouver Island. As a workshop facilitator at the University of Victoria and instructor at institutions like Royal Roads University, Camosun College, and the Canadian College of Performing Arts, de Guevara has left an enduring legacy on the national theatre landscape through her active support of the next generation of artists.

Snapshot of a year

by | Jul 19, 2024 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, climate, donor, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, News, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

We’re excited to share with you the latest edition of the Faculty of Fine Arts Annual Review. While it’s always difficult to encapsulate an entire year’s worth of activity into a single 36-page magazine, we do enjoy the creative challenge of sharing our top stories with you!

“This past year, colleagues continued to reconceptualize the contours of arts education, creative expression and scholarly knowledge,” writes Dr. Allana Lindgren in her introduction. “The arts continue to be essential for cultivating dexterity through creative thinking and fostering the empathy needed to navigate our increasingly complex world.”

Dean Lindgren also notes the ongoing inspiration Fine Arts students provide. “Their commitment to creativity continues to inspire me and gives me confidence that the next generation of arts leaders has the temerity to transform life’s challenges into opportunities for intellectual reflection and artistic innovation.”

Inside, you’ll find a variety of stories about the recent activity of our faculty, students, staff, donors and community partners.

Education equates with action here in Fine Arts: we are committed to helping our students cultivate the skills needed to become innovative artists and engaged leaders.

Our curriculum, artistic practices, research and creative activities are rooted in our belief in the power of creativity, experimentation and the efficacy of the arts to help us to understand and address today’s most urgent and vexing issues.

If you missed a previous Annual Review, issues dating back to 2017 are archived here.

Remembering guitarist Alexander Dunn

by | May 13, 2024 | Award, Faculty, News, School of Music

It is with profound sadness that we share the news that our friend and School of Music colleague, Dr. Alexander Dunn, passed away unexpectedly on the morning of May 8. “This is a loss that will be deeply felt by members of our School and the wider music community,” says School of Music director Alexis Luko. “On behalf of the School of Music, our deepest condolences go out to Alex’s to loved ones, family, friends and colleagues.”

His sudden passing at just 68 was marked in this May 11 Times Colonist article, which quoted his cousin and lifelong guitar partner Robert Ward as saying, “even in high school, [Alex] was singled out as having a really unique talent.” Ward and Dunn performed together in Boston as recently as April 20, with Ward noting he was in fine health, good spirits and played magnificently. “It was a brilliant performance,” Ward told the TC. “We had a great time playing what was a very difficult program.”

An enviable musical legacy

Beyond spending nearly 34 years at UVic building one of the strongest guitar programs in Canada, Alex also served as president and artistic director of the Victoria Guitar Society, the board of examiners for the Royal Conservatory, and worked as an instructor at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, and at the University of California, Irvine.

“This news is a great shock to the classical guitar world and leaves a chasm in the Victoria guitar scene, where Alex was instrumental in bringing us an amazing array of performers over the years,” posted the Victoria Guitar Society. “We will always remember Alex for his passion for music and his talent at passing this knowledge down to new generations. We’ve lost a friend and an artist.”

An internationally renowned guitarist, Alex was the recipient of UVic’s Sessional Lecturer Teaching Excellence Award in Fine Arts (2019/20), and he received the Provost’s Advocacy and Activism Award (2019) for his work in bringing the Orontes Guitar Quartet from Syria to UVic as visiting artists.

International respect

A virtuoso performer, acclaimed teacher, dedicated mentor and enthusiastic supporter of emerging young talent, Alex was a frequent guest performer at international guitar festivals and a popular adjudicator and competition judge across North America. He was also a protégé of internationally acclaimed flamenco guitar master Pepe Romero, with whom he toured.

“His sight reading and analytical skills are phenomenal,” Romero noted on Dunn’s website. “One need only to bring up his name in the guitar world, and you will sense immediately the respect he commands.” As the TC article notes, Dunn hosted several fundraising concerts by Romero in Victoria, and was instrumental in arranging for his former instructor and mentor to receive an honorary doctorate from UVic. Romero regards Dunn as one of the finest teachers he has encountered. “When I think of Alex, I think of a musician’s musician — a man who commands a vast knowledge of the repertoire,” Romero wrote. “He seems to know more about lute and early music than most specialists.”

Alex was also the recipient of an Institute of International Education grant and the prizewinner of the Internationaler Wettbewerb Freiburg. As a performer, he enchanted audiences across North America and worldwide in South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, South Africa and New Zealand.

With a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a PhD in musicology from the University of California, San Diego, Alex also spent extensive summer studies at the Aspen Music Festival and the Salzburg Mozarteum.

Dunn with the Orontes Quartet in 2018

Advocacy & Activism

Alex passionately advocated so that people who come from less fortunate backgrounds could excel—a perfect example of this advocacy and activism was his effort in 2018 to bring the Orontes Guitar Quartet to UVic from war-torn Syria.

After the classical guitar ensemble were denied entry to the US in 2017 due to the ongoing Syrian travel ban, Alex spent nearly 18 months working with two US-based organizations — the Artist Protection Fund (APF), an innovative initiative of the Institute of International Education, and the non-profit organization Remember the River — to secure the Orontes a placement at UVic.

As the Canadian arm of Remember the River — a non-profit organization that brings guitars to refugee camps in the Middle East — Alex had already been helping send guitarists into impoverished communities, including on some First Nations. Building on that experience, he helped the Orontes Guitar Quartet escape war-ravaged Syria and to come to UVic to work under his mentorship. He described it at the time as “an exhilarating experience”. 

“Knowing that a group of musicians on the other side of the world — connected by common interests but separated by the chasm of human rights abuses and the outrages of war — was life-changing,” he said. “Suddenly the abstraction of religious and cultural conflict occupied my thoughts in a very real way.”

As a result, the quartet performed across Canada in numerous events supporting refugees and people from war torn countries, bringing a unique narrative of music surviving in times of violence and war. For his efforts, he was named one of just two recipients of UVic’s 2019 Advocacy & Activism Awards (below)

Alexander Dunn with UVic’s Director of Equity & Human Rights Cassbreea Dewis (left)
&  fellow award winner Sage Lacerte, plus then-VP Academic & Provost Valerie Kuehne

Join the Fine Arts e-news

by | Jan 22, 2024 | e-news, Events, News

Did you know that we offer over 150 events a year here in UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts? From concerts, exhibits and plays to readings, artist talks, guest lectures, film screenings and more, all our events are open to the public — and many are free!

But how can you find out about what we’re offering? It’s simple! Just sign up for our monthly Coming Up in Fine Arts email and we’ll keep you in the loop. (And it is just an easily-skimmed email — no pics or ads included.)

Usually sent out on the first of each month, Coming up in Fine Arts offers quick summaries of upcoming event highlights in Art History, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing and the School of Music — complete with dates, times, locations and relevant links. (Sometimes we’ll send out two CUFAs a month, depending how much activity is going on.) We also include a short media roundup, as well as news about student and alumni activity too.

Don’t miss out on what may well be your favourite event of the year—join the hundreds of other who are already know what’s Coming Up in Fine Arts.

But if you’re looking for something more specific, we also offer separate e-news mailings for both Theatre (Backstage Pass) and the School of Music (E-Pulse).

Fine Arts in the news: media roundup

by | Jan 17, 2024 | Alumni, Art History & Visual Studies, Award, climate, Faculty, Graduate, indigenous, News, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

When it comes to announcements, publications and media appearances, there’s never really a slow time for Fine Arts faculty, alumni and students — and the past couple of months have been no exception. Here’s a quick roundup of who’s been speaking with the media lately.

 

Art History & Visual Studies

In this December article for Forbes magazine, professor Catherine Harding comments on the use of AI in identifying another artist involved in a 16th century painting by Raphael. “It is wonderful if we can use AI in this way,” Harding said. “It won’t be irrefutable. It will depend entirely on the expertise of the people doing the programming, but if they can write the right kind of algorithm, it will be very useful.”

As part of the new Jeffrey Rubinoff Nexus for Art as a Source of Knowledge, professor Allan Antliff has been selected as the inaugural Rubinoff Legacy Professor. This named professorship is just one facet of $230,000 in new funding from the Rubinoff Foundation, which also includes 15 annual graduate student scholarships and the expansion of experiential learning initiatives at Hornby Island’s Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park. Read more in this announcement.

Professor Carolyn Butler Palmer and Visual Arts professor emeritus Lynda Gammon were interviewed on this Jan 6 segment of CBC Radio’s North By Northwest in support of Gammon’s Latent exhibit at Legacy downtown, which is curated by Butler Palmer. There is also an accompanying short visual story with pictures in this issue of the NXNW newsletter.

Adjunct professor Martin Segger recently wrote this fantastic Times Colonist piece about the history of not only Centennial Square but the overall planned design of Victoria’s downtown district.

Adjunct professor Grace Wong Sneddon co-curated the recent exhibit The Magic of Tony Eng (with local historian John Adams) for the Chinese Canadian Museum in Fan Tan Alley. A goal for this museum is to recognize Victoria’s Chinese Canadians and, as such, Eng is an ideal subject: a vibrant and active member of the city, many remember him as a charismatic stage magician, teacher and mentor to generations of local magicians. In other news, Wong Sneddon recently co-authored two chapters in a new book, Diversity Leadership in Education: Embedding Practices of Social Justice (2024, edited by UVic’s Catherine McGregor & Shailoo Bedi): “Unpacking the Equity Myth: Diversity & Leadership Deficit” (with Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay) and “Race and Gender: Chinese Canadian Women and Leadership” (with Lokpriy Shrma & Tremblay).

Alum India Young is cited in this Vancouver Sun article about a career retrospective exhibit by Nuu-chah-nulth artist George Clutes at Vancouver’s Bill Reid Gallery; the exhibit was created by Young plus UVic’s Andrea Walsh and Jennifer Robinson.

School of Music

Marking their official retirement from performing, the “trailblazing” Lafayette String Quartet were recently profiled in this feature article from Strings Magazine. “I hope we’ve instilled a deep love of chamber music in our audiences and students,” said Ann Elliott-Goldschmid. Our students benefited enormously from observing four musicians who respect each other and worked together, unified, in overseeing their studies and musical growth.”

Ahead of his final concert featuring live piano accompaniment to a silent film, professor Bruce Vogt was interviewed by CBC Radio’s All Points West (not archived) and in this Times Colonist story. “I’m certainly not retiring from playing,” said Vogt. “I just won’t be teaching any more. I’ll still be around, until I hear the chimes at midnight.”

January’s masterclass with guest mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy got a shout-out in this Times Colonist roundup.

Professor Benjamin Butterfield plus alumni Isaiah Bell and Timothy Carter all appeared on this segment of CBC Radio’s On The Island talking about their recent concert, Banned from the Concert Hall. Butterfield was also interviewed for this Times Colonist story about the same event. “I’m not sure everyone goes around talking about their arse all day in Baroque circles,” Butterfield said with a laugh. “But this type of thing has been around a long time.”

As the new leader of the annual TubaChristmas fundraiser, instructor Scott MacInnes was featured in this December Times Colonist article. “It’s awesome that such a lowly instrument can provide so much happiness,” said MacInnes, who will be conducting the festive ensemble for the first time.

Arbutus Middle School’s music program was recently announced as the winners—again—of CBC’s annual national Music Class Challenge. While not named in the article, Arbutus’s music program is led by alumni Jennifer Hill & sessional Michael Mazza.

Theatre

As co-author, professor Yasmine Kandil was recently announced as one of the winners of 2023’s Wayman Mullins Award for Best Journal Article, as awarded by the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology Board of Directors. This award is given for the best scientific article as published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. Kandil, along with co-authors Jennifer A. A. Lavoie & Natalie Alvarez, picked up the award for their article “Developing Community Co-designed Scenario-Based Training for Police Mental Health Crisis Response: A Relational Policing Approach to De-escalation”.

Alum Jena Mailloux (MA Interdisciplinary Studies: Applied Theatre/Curriculum & Instruction) recently published the article “Elevating Critical Pedagogy Through Dramatic Principles: A Comparative Framework Analysis of Anti-Bullying Drama Education and Theatre Research Initiatives” in the Drama Australia Journal.

Alum Alynne Sinnema (MA Applied Theatre) was recently awarded the Canadian Association for Theatre Research Robert G. Lawrence Scholarship for her for the project “Coming to her Senses: Women’s Sexual Empowerment Through Applied Theatre”, which the adjudicating committee found “inventive and insightful in the ways it aims to combine applied theatre, specifically physical theatre, and feminist theory as a way to support women’s voices, embodied and scholarly considerations of women’s pleasure and sexual agency, and mental health.”

Alum Narges Montakhabi was awarded the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR) Heather McCallum Scholarship for her project “Politics and Poethics of Precarity in Contemporary Middle Eastern Canadian Theatre.” Describing her project as “ambitious”, the committee found her work “amplified the voices of less-heard and younger generations of underrepresented Middle Eastern Canadian playwrights, focusing on contemporary (mostly 21st century) plays and playwrights from Iran, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

Visual Arts

Recent MFA alum Maryam (whose last name is not being used in the media due to safety concerns) was quoted in this Times Colonist story about her work in the latest Victoria Arts Council exhibit, You Are Welcome. “I’m still very impressed,” she said of the protests in Iran, where most of her friends and family reside. “The metal [in my piece] represents the strength and power of the women in my country when they were killed and shot in the streets.”

While the late-’90s children’s TV show Nanalan is currently going viral on TikTok, none of the coverage mentions the fact that professor Kelly Richardson worked on the show in between her BFA and MFA degrees. She worked on 71 episodes, making the set & greenery but also puppeteering; this allowed her to buy her first computer which entirely changed her art practice. “I’ve never really stopped making plants and animating bugs in my work,” she says. You can see some behind-the-scene photos Kelly has posted on her Instagram feed.

UVic Impact Chair Carey Newman was involved in the first fully bilingual colloquium of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums Partnership  at the National Gallery of Canada in December. The conference outlined some of the innovative practices changing the standards and practices of art acquisition. This colloquium was jointly produced by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) as part of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group’s Partnership New Uses of Collections in Art Museums.

In other news Carey Newman news, this Vancouver Sun article notes that the traveling exhibition of his Witness Blanket will be on display in the West Vancouver public library from Jan 26-March 8. This touring version is a detailed photographic replica of the original 13-panel sculptural installation, which is now permanently housed in Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Following this stop, the current 17-city tour next comes to the Saanich School Division (March 25–May 10) before moving on to Nelson and Nova Scotia, with more dates booking into 2025.  

Work by current MFA candidate Eeman Masood was featured in Frozen Forest, the recent curated exhibition at Abu Dhabi Art, and will also be displayed at the India Art Fair exhibition in New Dehli via her gallery representative Galerie ISA, from Feb 1- 4. 

 

Writing

Recent Writing grad and Climate Disaster Project managing editor Aldyn Chwelos was recently featured on this story for CBC Radio’s All Points West, speaking about their work documenting testimonials from survivors of severe wildfires and floods—some of which are getting a reprint in the December/January issue of Readers Digest. Chwelos was also featured in a separate interview with CBC Kelowna’s Radio West (not archived).

Teaching professor Marita Dachsel’s new essay collection Sharp Notions: Essays from the Stitching Life was mentioned in the Globe and Mail’s book gift guide for “The Mindful Maven” this year. “As the editors [Marita Dachsel and Nancy Lee] point out, in the 21st century we don’t need to knit, embroider, weave, bead, make lace or spin yarn. But what these essays by crafters get at, instead, is the nourishment found in the meditative (rather than productive) solace of fibre-arts handiwork.” Dachsel was also interviewed for this Vancouver Sun article exploring two new books with Vancouver Island fibre connections. Sharp Notions was also recently positively reviewed for The British Columbia Review, and it was included inAll Lit Up’s “Refresh Your Shelf: New Non-Fiction” list, which included five notable nonfiction reads for 2024.

Professor David Leach spoke with residents at two Isralei kibbutzim for this story for Jewish Renaissance Magazine. “In 2010, I completed a circuit around Israel to research a book about the founding ideals, hundred-year history and slow decline of the kibbutz movement,” writes Leach. “These 270 or so rural communes, dreamed into reality by young Jewish pioneers as a fusion of socialism and Zionism, had marked the borders of the future state and shaped many of its leaders and artists.”

Crookes Professor Sean Holman announced in December that Rappler — the Philippines’ leading digital media company — has published five students stories as part of the Climate Disaster Project Philippines, appearing just in time for COP28. As part of the CDP’s international outreach, UVic’s Division of Continuing Studies provides certificates to the Philippines students for their work in trauma-informed environmental journalism. All five harrowing stories can be read here, here, here, here and here.

MFA Sam Shelstad’s novel The Cobra and The Key was recently included on CBC Book’s list of “30 books to read this winter”. Things are getting meta with this new satirical novel, which is centred on the life of a writer (also named Sam Shelstad) who is busy working on a book about his failed relationship, while he awaits word from a publisher about the manuscript he’s sure will make him a star—a how-to book for aspiring fiction writers detailing the finer points of the craft.

MFA alum Kyeren Regehr has been named the new director of Victoria’s venerable Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series—which, at 28 years, is surely the city’s longest-running continuous literary series. PEP runs weekly, 7-9pm Fridays at Russell Books on Fort Street.

Fine Arts

UVic’s Fine Arts + Grants & Awards Librarian Christine Walde recently presented her book-themed art exhibit Salvage at the Bruce Hutchinson public library branch, in conjunction withthe Victoria Arts Council. Salvage is a collection of driftwood books salvaged from the beaches of Vancouver Island and the Cascadia bioregion of the Pacific Northwest over a ten-year period.

Did you know Fine Arts Dean Allana Lindgren hosts the pre-show talks for the DanceVictoria series? A dance historian herself, Lindgren speaks ahead of each show in the performance series.

Finally, the winners of our 2023 Student Community Impact Awards were mentioned in Monday Magazine’s coverage of the Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards.